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Does the Internet Increase, Decrease, Or Supplement Social Capital?

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Does the Internet Increase, Decrease, Or Supplement Social Capital? AMERICANWellman et al. BEHAVIORAL / THE INTERNET SCIENTIST AND SOCIAL CAPITAL Does the Internet Increase, Decrease, or Supplement Social Capital? Social Networks, Participation, and Community Commitment BARRY WELLMAN ANABEL QUAN HAASE University of Toronto JAMES WITTE Clemson University KEITH HAMPTON Massachusetts Institute of Technology How does the Internet affect social capital? Do the communication possibilities of the Internet increase, decrease, or supplement interpersonal contact, participation, and community commitment? This evidence comes from a 1998 survey of 39,211 visitors to the National Geographic Society Web site, one of the first large-scale Web surveys. The authors find that people’s interaction online supplements their face-to-face and telephone communication without increasing or decreasing it. However, heavy Internet use is associated with increased participation in voluntary organizations and politics. Further support for this effect is the positive association between offline and online participation in voluntary organizations and politics. However, the effects of the Internet are not only positive: The heaviest users of the Internet are the least committed to online community. Taken together, this evidence suggests that the Internet is becoming normalized as it is incorporated into the routine practices of everyday life. DEBATING THE INTERNET’S EFFECTS ON SOCIAL CAPITAL How the Internet affects social capital is neither a trivial nor an obscure ques- tion. Robert Putnam (1996, 2000) has documented a long-term decline since the Authors’ Note: This article has profited by the advice and assistance of Richard Bernard, Wenhong Chen, Joe Germuska, Philip Howard, Kristine Klement, ValerieMay, Carleton Thorne, and Beverly Wellman. Our compatriots at the University of Toronto’s NetLab, Centre for Urban and Community Studies, Department of Sociology, the Faculty of Information Studies, the Knowledge Media Design Institute, and the Bell University Laboratories have created stimulating milieus for thinking about cyber-society. The research that underlies this article has been supported by the Bell University Lab- oratories, the National Geographic Society, the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Office of Learning Technologies (Human Resources Development Canada). AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST, Vol. 45 No. 3, November 2001 436-455 © 2001 Sage Publications 436 Downloaded from http://abs.sagepub.com at UNIV OF PENNSYLVANIA on February 16, 2010 Wellman et al. / THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL CAPITAL 437 1960s in American civic involvement. This decline includes the lessened ability of citizens to articulate and organize requests for good government, the move- ment away from community life, and increased psychological alienation. Putnam’s evidence encompasses two forms of social capital, which we call 1. Network capital: Relations with friends, neighbors, relatives, and workmates that significantly provide companionship, emotional aid, goods and services, informa- tion, and a sense of belonging (Wellman & Frank, 2001). 2. Participatory capital: Involvement in politics and voluntary organizations that affords opportunities for people to bond, create joint accomplishments, and aggre- gate and articulate their demands and desires, a concept enshrined in the Ameri- can heritage by de Tocqueville (1835). We add a third item to this discussion and to our analysis: 3. Community commitment: Social capital consists of more than going through the motions of interpersonal interaction and organizational involvement. When peo- ple have a strong attitude toward community—have a motivated, responsible sense of belonging—they will mobilize their social capital more willingly and effectively (McAdam, 1982). What if Putnam is only measuring old forms of community and participation while new forms of communication and organization underneath his radar are connecting people? Some evidence suggests that the observed decline has not led to social isolation but to community becoming embedded in social networks rather than groups and a movement of community relationships from easily observed public spaces to less accessible private homes (see the related discus- sions in Lin, 2001; Wellman, 1999a, 2001). If people are tucked away in their homes rather than conversing in cafes, then perhaps they are going online: chat- ting online one-to-one; exchanging e-mail in duets or small groups; or schmooz- ing, ranting, and organizing in discussion groups such as listservs or newsgroups (Kraut, Lundmark, et al., 1998; Smith, Drucker, Wellman, & Kraut, 1999). The rapidly expanding Internet has been a big hope for community creation, with more than half of Americans (56%) having Internet access by the end of 2000 (Mosquera, 2000). Although the debate surrounding the influence of the Internet on social capital has been ongoing, no clear pattern has yet emerged. Until recently, much of the debate took place without much systematic data (Flanagan & Metzger, 2001). Utopians have claimed that the Internet provides new and better ways of communication (e.g., De Kerckhove, 1997; Lévy, 1997), whereas dystopians have argued that the Internet takes people away from their communities and families (e.g., Slouka, 1995; Stoll, 1995). As the Internet has infiltrated North American life, analysts have had to move from seeing it as an external world to seeing how it becomes integrated into the complexity of everyday life (compare the first and second editions of Rheingold, 1993, 2000). We contribute to the debate by asking if the Internet increases, decreases, or supplements social capital. We examine people’s Internet use in Downloaded from http://abs.sagepub.com at UNIV OF PENNSYLVANIA on February 16, 2010 438 AMERICAN BEHAVIORAL SCIENTIST the broader context of their face-to-face and telephone communication. We ana- lyze the relationship of their online activities to their interpersonal network capi- tal, their organizational and political participation, and their commitment to community. The evidence for our discussion comes from a large-scale Web sur- vey of visitors to the National Geographic Society Web site in the fall of 1998. DOES THE INTERNET INCREASE SOCIAL CAPITAL? Early—and continuing—excitement about the Internet saw it as stimulating positive change in people’s lives by creating new forms of online interaction and enhancing offline relationships. The Internet would restore community by pro- viding a meeting space for people with common interests and overcoming limi- tations of space and time (Baym, 1997; Sproull & Kiesler, 1991; Wellman, 2001). Online communities would promote open, democratic discourse (Sproull & Kiesler, 1991), allow for multiple perspectives (Kapor, 1993), and mobilize col- lective action (Schwartz, 1996; Tarrow, 1999). Although early accounts focused on the formation of online virtual communities (e.g., Rheingold, 1993), it has become clear that most relationships formed in cyberspace continue in physical space, leading to new forms of community characterized by a mixture of online and offline interactions (e.g., Müller, 1999; Rheingold, 2000). Moreover, online interactions fill communication gaps between face-to-face meetings. The Internet thus enhances the tendency for many ties to be nonlocal, connected by cars, planes, phones, and now computer networks (Wellman, 1999a, 2001). Although a developing phenomenon worldwide (Wellman, 1999b), nonlocal community is probably most prevalent in North America, where people move frequently and sometimes far away; where family, friends, former neighbors, and workmates are separated by many miles; and where the many immigrants keep contact with friends and relatives in their homelands. Those who see the Internet as playing an increasingly central role in everyday life would argue that it increases communication offline as well as online. In this view, the Internet not only affords opportunities to contact friends and kin at low cost, it also enhances face-to-face and telephone communication as network members (a) become more aware of each others’ needs and stimulate their rela- tionships through more frequent contact (Homans, 1961); (b) exchange songs, pictures, and other files; and (c) make online arrangements to meet in person and by telephone. The Internet can also increase organizational involvement by facilitating the flow of information between face-to-face meetings and arrang- ing these meetings themselves. The plethora of information available on the Web and the ease of using search engines and hyperlinks to find groups fitting one’s interests should enable newcomers to find, join, and get involved in kin- dred organizations. Thus, if the Internet increases social capital, then high Internet use should be accompanied by more offline interpersonal contact, orga- nizational participation, and commitment to community. Downloaded from http://abs.sagepub.com at UNIV OF PENNSYLVANIA on February 16, 2010 Wellman et al. / THE INTERNET AND SOCIAL CAPITAL 439 DOES THE INTERNET DECREASE SOCIAL CAPITAL? The second view argues for an inverse relationship, that the Internet is foster- ing a decline in social capital. The interrelated bases for the argument are that The Internet may be diverting people from true community because online interactions are inherently inferior to face-to-face and even phone interactions. Online ties may be less able than offline ties to foster complex friendships, pro- vide intangible resources such as emotional support, and provide tangible
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